Jericho Captured

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

Joshua 6:12-27

And Joshua rose early in the morning, and the priests took up the ark of the LORD.…

I. GOD WOULD HAVE HIS PEOPLE WORK. We daily insist upon it that works do not make a man to live, but we equally insist upon it that spiritual life continually manifests itself by holy deeds. The soldiers of God's army, after they had crossed the Jordan, were not to lie still in luxurious ease till Jericho's walls should crumble down by slow degrees; and though God determined to send Jericho to destruction on a sudden, yet His people are not to sit still upon some neighbouring knoll and expect the catastrophe: they are to labour, and Jericho is to fall as the result of their toil. Let us look at this work a little in connection with this narrative.

1. You will observe that the work to be done by Israel was universal. There was a place for each one to occupy. The men of arms were to go round the city, and with them the priests were to march also. Both the ecclesiastical and the military castes should be represented here. They must neither of them sit still. God would have His people work universally.

2. But, next, He would have them work in His own appointed way. They are not to go in a scramble — in a boyish race; there must be the soldiers in their troops, the priests in their array, and then again, the men of war to bring up the rear. God would have His people work according to His own revealed will. If I go upon a tour I do not expect to see certain sights which have been guaranteed to me by my friend, unless I agree to follow the little chart which he has mapped out for me. I cannot expect to have that sublime view of the Alps if I refuse to climb a certain spot and stand there and view the glacier and the snow peak glittering in the sun. And I cannot expect to have God's blessing in my ministry and in the Sunday-school class unless I keep to "It is written," and in all things have a tender conscience, and am jealous of myself lest I err.

3. Then, again, remember, they encompassed the city daily. So does God call His Church to work daily. The wheel must revolve again, and again, and again: it is that perpetual motion of industry which produces wealth, and it must be the ceaseless energy of our zeal which shall produce spiritual conquest.

4. Nor have we exhausted the metaphors with which our text supplies us, for surely we may add that God would have His people work in faith. We are told that, "by faith the walls of Jericho fell down." Is the preaching of the gospel a power? If you think it is not, never try it again. Is the gospel mighty to save? Will the gospel come out victorious? If you have any doubt slink back to your cowardly repose, but let the man whom God sends never doubt. If you have achieved no successes, if after fifty years your trumpet of jubilee was exceeding small, if after fifty years it was something like a ram's horn that had not been bored, and could not make any noise at all, yet still go on; your time for shouting has not come yet, but your time for compassing the city is always present. Go on with it, go on with it, and God will not permit you to end till you have won the victory. So let us notice once more under this head of work, they worked with patience and courage, God kept this people labouring in the presence of difficulty. Sometimes we get into the habit of shutting our eyes to difficulty; that will not do: faith is not a fool, faith does not shut her eyes to difficulty, and then run head foremost against a brick wall — never. Faith sees the difficulty, surveys it all, and then she says, "By my God will I leap over a wall"; and over the wall she goes.

II. GOD WOULD HAVE HIS PEOPLE WAIT. The delay must have sorely tried the faith and patience of the Israelites. There are a great many brethren who seem to be perfectly satisfied to rest at ease, but men of war do not generally seem to be of that temperament. When I was in the military prison at Dublin I observed a form of punishment there. Men were carrying large shot. A man took up a large shot and carried it to the end of the yard, and he afterwards had to pick that shot up and bring it back again. I said, "How is it you do not let them take all the shot to that end and pile them up there?" The officer said, "We used to do so but it was no use, for when the fellows had piled them up they felt they were doing something, but now we make them carry the shot from one end of the yard to the other, and then back again, and back again, and they feel they have to work hard and do nothing. That is always miserable work to the soldiers." Many of our soldiers at Sebastopol made bitter complaints at not being led to battle. And you will often have heard young military men say, that they hate the inactivity of peace, they want to be doing something. Now these men of war were kept for six days marching round and round the city, and they must have felt themselves to have been doing very little all that week. Though as men of war we would rather come to close quarters and see more done, yet as men of God we must keep to our posts of duty, and learn how to wait. Besides this, what rendered the waiting so very galling was (what must have struck their reason if it did not assail their faith) the utter desperateness of the ease. How could they hope to win that city by simply going round and round? "Give me a good ladder," says one, " a rope-ladder and a couple of good irons at the end of it; just let me hear the clank upon the top-stone, and I am your man to lead the ' forlorn hope,' and there are fifty thousand of us to follow, and we will soon have Judah's standard waving on the top, and make the sons of Jericho know what the sons of Abraham can do." But no; they must just march round the place till they have compassed the city twelve times. And so there are certain spirits apt to say, "Could not we do more by adopting these methods and such other expedients?" Now we know that God has His reasons for making us wait. It is for His own glory we doubt not. We know that all things work together for good, and, we believe, it will be ultimately for our profit. When I have read some masterly tragic poem, and verse after verse has dwelt upon the horrible portion of the tale, did I wish it shortened? Would I have the author leave out one of those dark verses? Not

I. God is writing a great poem of human history, the subject is the victory of truth, the destruction of Antichrist. Let the history be long. Who wants it shortened? who wants a brief story on so exceedingly interesting a subject as this, from so great an Author?

III. GOD WOULD HAVE HIS PEOPLE WIN. The victory is very sure, and, when it comes forth, very complete. Nothing could .be more so. It may be very sudden also, and it will be very glorious. But we shall get nothing by it, for when Jericho fell, nobody gained anything except to offer it unto the Lord; so that we have to persevere in disinterested service, just toiling on for the Master, remembering that when success comes it will all be His — every single atom of it — the glory will be to Him and not to us.

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